Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David Windsor; later The Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972) was King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India from the death of his father, George V (1910–36), on 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December 1936. He was the second British monarch of the House of Windsor, his father having changed the name of the Royal house from the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1917. Prior to his accession to the throne, Edward VIII held the titles of Prince Edward of York, Prince Edward of York and Cornwall, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, and Prince of Wales (all with the style ''Royal Highness''). After his abdication he reverted to the style of a son of the sovereign, The Prince Edward, and was created Duke of Windsor on 8 March 1937. During World War II (1939–45) he was the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Bahamas. Edward VIII is the only British monarch to have voluntarily relinquished the throne. He signed the instrument of abdication on 10 December 1936. The British Parliament passed His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 the next day and, on its receiving Royal Assent from Edward VIII, he legally ceased to be King in all but one of his realms: his abdication as King of Ireland occurred one day later. After Lady Jane Grey and Edward V, he is the third shortest-reigning monarch in British history, and like them, he too was never crowned. Early life Edward VIII was born on 23 June 1894 at White Lodge, Richmond, Surrey. He was the eldest son of The Duke of York (later King George V), who was the second son of The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII, who ruled 1901–10) and The Princess of Wales (formerly Princess Alexandra of Denmark). Edward VIII's mother, The Duchess of York (formerly Princess Victoria Mary of Teck), was the eldest daughter of The Duke of Teck and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge. As a great grandson of Queen Victoria in the male line, Edward VIII was styled His Highness Prince Edward of York at his birth. He was baptised in the Green Drawing Room of White Lodge on 16 July 1894 by Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury and his twelve godparents were Queen Victoria (1837–1901), the Prince and Princess of Wales, the King and Queen of Denmark, the King of Württemberg, the Queen of Greece, the Tsarevitch of Russia, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Duke and Duchess of Teck and the Duke of Cambridge. Edward VIII was named after his grandfather, Edward, Prince of Wales, and his great-grandfather King Christian IX of Denmark. The name Albert was included at the behest of Queen Victoria. His last four names – George, Andrew, Patrick and David – came from the Patron Saints of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The Prince was nevertheless, for the rest of his life, known to his family and close friends, by his last given name, David. Edward VIII's parents, The Duke and Duchess of York, were often removed from their children's upbringing, like other upper-class English parents of the day. Edward VIII and his younger brother Albert received considerable abuse at the hands of the royal nanny. The nanny would pinch Edward before he was due to be presented to his parents. His subsequent crying and wailing would lead the Duke and Duchess to send Edward and the nanny away.HRH The Duke of Windsor, A King's Story (Cassell and Co., London, 1951) p.7 On the other hand, the King, though a harsh disciplinarian, was demonstrably affectionate and Queen Mary displayed a frolicksome side when dealing with her children that belies her austere public image, having been greatly amused by the children making tadpoles on toast for their French masterThe Duke of Windsor, p.38-39, and encouraged them to confide matters in her which it would have provoked the King to know.Philip Ziegler, King Edward VIII: The official biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). ISBN 0-394-57730-2 p.79 Prince of Wales He automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland when his father, George V, ascended the throne on 6 May 1910. The new King created him Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 23 June 1910 and officially invested him as such in a special ceremony at Caernarfon Castle on 13 July 1911.Alison Weir, Britain’s Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy Revised edition (Pimlico, London, 1996) p.327 For the first time since 1616 this investiture took place in Wales at the instigation of the Welsh politician David Lloyd George, Constable of the Castle, who at that time held the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal government.The Duke of Windsor, p.78 Military career When the First World War (1914–18) broke out Edward had reached the minimum age for active service and expressed keenness to participate. He had joined the army, serving with the Grenadier Guards, in June 1914 and although Edward was willing to serve on the front lines, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, refused to allow it, citing the immense harm that the capture of the heir to the throne would cause.Andrew Roberts and Antonia Fraser The House of Windsor (Cassell and Co., London, 2000) ISBN 0-304-35406-6 p.41HRH The Duke of Windsor, p.109 Despite this, Edward witnessed trench warfare at firsthand and attempted to visit the front line as often as he could, leading to his award of the Military Cross in 1916. His role in the war, although limited, led to his great popularity among veterans of the conflict. As of 1911 he was also a Midshipman in the Royal Navy, making Lieutenant in 1913. On his succession he became Admiral of the Fleet in the Navy, Field Marshal in the Army, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force in the Air Force. Royal duties in Canada, 1919]] Throughout the 1920s the Prince of Wales represented his father, King George V, at home and abroad on many occasions. He took a particular interest in visiting the poverty stricken areas of the country. After the Great Depression he visited many deprived areas of the UK and signed up 200,000 people to his back-to-work scheme. Abroad, the Prince of Wales toured the Empire, undertaking 13 tours between 1919 and 1935, and in the process acquiring Bedingfield ranch, near Pekisko, Alberta. He made unedifying and often deeply racist comments about the Empire's subjects and various foreign peoples, both during his career as Prince of Wales and later as Duke of Windsor, particularly in Africa and India but also in Canada, the West Indies, Mexico and Australia (see wikiquotes). They were little commented upon at the time, but later biographers severely taxed his reputation with them. He soon became the 1920s version of a latter-day movie star. At the height of his popularity, he became the most photographed celebrity of his time and his dress sense emulated by those in fashion.Lewis Broad, The Abdication: Twenty-five Years After. A Re-appraisal (Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1961) p.4-5 An enduring, albeit trivial, legacy is the fashion item of the Windsor knot, named for him after his fondness for large-knotted ties. (The Prince of Wales's profound effect on his public — possibly easy to dismiss as trivial and transient frivolity many years later, particularly many years after the fiasco of the abdication crisis and the long years of idleness that followed — is given extensive literary treatment in Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy.) Romances In 1930, King George V gave Edward a home, Fort Belvedere, near Sunningdale in Berkshire.The Duke of Windsor, p.235 There Edward had relationships with a series of married women including Anglo-American textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward, American film actress Mildred Harris and Lady Furness (born Thelma Morgan) an American woman of part-Chilean ancestry, who introduced the Prince to fellow American Wallis Simpson. Mrs Simpson had divorced her first husband in 1927 and subsequently married Ernest Simpson, an Anglo-American businessman. Mrs Simpson and the Prince of Wales, it is generally accepted, became lovers while Lady Furness travelled abroad, though Edward adamantly insisted to his father the King that he was not intimate with her and that it was never appropriate to describe her as his mistress. Edward's relationship with Mrs Simpson further weakened his poor relationship with his father, King George V. Although the King and Queen met Mrs Simpson at Buckingham Palace in 1935, they later refused to receive herSarah Bradford, George VI (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1989) p.142, and his brother, Prince Albert, urged Edward to seek a more suitable wife. But Edward had now fallen in love with Wallis and the couple grew ever closer. Edward's affair with the American divorcée led to such grave concern that the couple were followed by members of the Metropolitan police Special Branch, to examine in secret the nature of their relationship. An undated report detailed a visit by the couple to an antique shop, where the proprietor later noted that: "the lady seemed to have POW of Wales completely under her thumb."http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,885144,00.html Owen Boycott and Stephen Bates, Car dealer was Wallis Simpson's secret lover In: The Guardian, Thursday, January 30, 2003 The prospect of having an American divorcée with a questionable past having such sway over the Heir Apparent caused some anxiety to government and establishment figures at the time. Reign King George V died on 20 January 1936, and Edward ascended to the throne as King Edward VIII. The next day, he broke royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his own accession to the throne from a window of St. James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Mrs. Simpson.The Duke of Windsor, p.265 It was also at this time that Edward VIII became the first British monarch to fly in an aeroplane, when he flew from Sandringham to London for his Accession Council. Edward caused unease in government circles with actions that were interpreted as interference in political matters. On visiting the depressed coal mining villages in South Wales the King’s observation that "something must be done" for the unemployed coal miners was seen as directly critical of the Government, though it has never been clear whether the King had anything in particular in mind. Government ministers were also reluctant to send confidential documents and state papers to Fort Belvedere because it was clear that Edward was paying little attention to them and because of the perceived danger that Mrs. Simpson and other house guests might see them.Ziegler, p.273-274 Edward's unorthodox approach to his role extended also to the currency which bore his image. He broke with tradition whereby on coinage each successive monarch faced in the opposite direction to his or her prececessor. Edward insisted his left side was superior to that of his right, and that he face left (as his father had done). Only a handful of coins were actually struck prior to the abdication, and when George VI succeeded he also faced left, in order to maintain the tradition by suggesting that had any coins been minted featuring Edward's portrait, they would have shown him facing right. On 16 July 1936, an attempt was made on the King's life. An Irish malcontent, Jerome Brannigan (otherwise known as George Andrew McMahon) produced a loaded revolver as the King rode on horseback at Constitution Hill, near Buckingham Palace. Police spotted the gun and pounced on him; he was quickly arrested. At Brannigan's trial, he alleged that "a foreign power" had approached him to kill Edward, that he had informed MI5 of the plan, and that he was merely seeing the plan through to help MI5 catch the real culprits. The court rejected the claims, and sent him to jail for a year. It is now thought that Brannigan had indeed been in contact with MI5 but the veracity of the remainder of his claims remains open.http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,867861,00.html Andrew Cook, The plot thickens In: The Guardian Friday, 3 January, 2003 By October it was becoming clear that the new King planned to marry Mrs Simpson, especially when divorce proceedings between Mr and Mrs Simpson were brought at Ipswich Crown Court. Abdication On 16 November 1936, Edward invited Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to Buckingham Palace and expressed his desire to marry Wallis Simpson when she became free to re-marry. Powerful figures in the British government deemed this marriage unacceptable, largely because Edward had become the Supreme Governor of the Church of England which prohibited remarriage after divorce. His alternative proposed solution of a morganatic marriage was rejected by the Prime Minister as well as other Dominion governments. The King informed Baldwin that he would abdicate if he could not marry her. The Baldwin then presented Edward with three choices: give up the idea of marriage; marry Mrs Simpson against his ministers' wishes; or abdicate.The Duke of Windsor, p.354-355 It was clear that Edward was not prepared to give up Mrs Simpson. By marrying against the advice of his ministers, he would cause the government to resign, prompting a constitutional crisis. The Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and South Africa made clear their opposition to the King marrying a divorcéeZiegler, p.305-307; the Irish Free State expressed indifference and detachment and New Zealand, having never even heard of Mrs Simpson before, vacillated in disbelief.Bradford, p187 Faced with this opposition, Edward at first responded that there were "not many people in Australia" and their opinion didn’t matter.Bradford, p.188 Ultimately, he chose to abdicate.The Duke of Windsor, p.387 He duly signed an instrument of abdication at Fort Belvedere on 10 December 1936 in the presence of his three brothers, The Duke of York, The Duke of Gloucester and The Duke of Kent. The next day, he performed his last act as King when he gave royal assent to His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 which applied to the United Kingdom, and equivalent legislation from all the dominions except the Irish Free State. The Free State passed the equivalent External Relations Act, which included the abdication in its schedule, the next day. Thus, legally, for one day he was merely an English prince, but King of Ireland. On the night of 11 December 1936, Edward, now reverted to the title of Prince Edward, made a broadcast to the nation and the Empire, explaining his decision to abdicate. He famously said, "I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love."The Official Website of the British Monarchy After the broadcast, Edward departed the United Kingdom for Austria, though he was unable to join Mrs Simpson until her divorce became absolute, several months later. His brother, Prince Albert, Duke of York succeeded to the throne as King George VI, with his eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth first in the line of succession, as the heir presumptive. Duke of Windsor George VI announced he was to make his brother Duke of Windsor, and also re-admit him to the highest degree of the various British Orders of Knighthood. He wanted to do this on 12 December 1936 at his Accession Privy Council, because he wanted this to be the first act of his reign, although the formal documents were not signed until 8 March of the following year. But during the interim, Edward was universally known as the Duke of Windsor. However, letters patent dated 27 May 1937, which re-conferred upon the Duke of Windsor the "title, style, or attribute of Royal Highness," specifically stated that "his wife and descendants, if any, shall not hold said title or attribute." Some British ministers advised that Edward had no need of it being conferred because he had not lost it, and further that Mrs Simpson would automatically obtain the rank of wife of a prince with the style HRH; others maintained that he had lost all royal rank and should no longer carry any royal title or style as an abdicated King. But George VI insisted that Edward should specifically be re-conferred with the rank of prince so that its terms could be within his control and on the grounds that if Edward were to be a commoner there could be no objection to his standing for Parliament. The King's decision to create Edward a royal duke ipso facto put him in the House of Lords and further ensured that he could not stand for election to the House of Commons, or speak about political subjects in the House of Lords. The Duke of Windsor married Mrs. Simpson, who had changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, in a private ceremony on 3 June 1937 at Chateau de Candé, near Tours, Maine-et-Loire, France. When the Church of England refused to sanction the union, a County Durham clergyman, the Reverend Robert Anderson Jardine (Vicar of St Paul's, Darlington), offered to perform the ceremony, and the Duke happily accepted. The new king, George VI, absolutely forbade members of the British royal family to attend — Edward had particularly wanted Princes Henry and George (the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent) and Lord Louis Mountbatten to be there — and this continued for many years to rankle with the now ducal couple, notwithstanding the obvious awkwardnesses involved should royalty have been on hand because of the King's role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The denial of the style "HRH" to the Duchess of Windsor caused conflict, as did the financial settlement — the government declined to include the Duke or the Duchess on the Civil List and the Duke's allowance was paid personally by the King. But the Duke had compromised his position with the King by concealing the extent of his financial worth when they informally agreed on the amount of the sinecure the King would pay. Edward's worth had accumulated from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall paid to him as Prince of Wales and ordinarily at the disposal of an incoming king. This led to strained relations between the Duke of Windsor and the rest of the royal family for decades. In the early days of George VI's reign the Duke telephoned daily, importuning for money and urging that the Duchess be granted the style of HRH, until the harassed King ordered that the calls not be put through. The Duke had assumed that he would settle in Britain after a year or two of exile in France. However, King George VI (with the support of his mother Queen Mary and his wife Queen Elizabeth) threatened to cut off his allowance if he returned to Britain without an invitation. The new King and Queen were also forced to pay Edward for Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle. These properties were Edward's personal property, inherited from his father, King George V on his death, and thus did not automatically pass to George VI on abdication. World War II ]] In 1937, the Duke and Duchess visited Germany, against the advice of the British government, and met Nazi leader Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden. The visit was much publicised by the German media. During the visit the Duke gave full Nazi salutes.Frances Donaldson, Edward VIII (1974) p.331-332 The couple then settled in France. In September 1939 they were brought back to Britain by Lord Mountbatten in HMS Kelly, and the Duke was made a Major-General attached to the British Military Mission in France. In February 1940, the German Minister in the Hague, Count Zech, claimed that the Duke had leaked the Allied war plans for the defence of Belgium.Bradford, p. 434 When Germany invaded the north of France in May 1940, the Windsors fled south, first to Biarritz, then in June to Spain. In July the pair moved to Lisbon, where they lived at first in the home of a banker with German contacts.Michael Bloch, The Duke of Windsor’s War (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1982) p.91 A "defeatist" interview with the Duke that was widely distributed may have served as the last straw for the British government: the Prime Minister Winston Churchill threatened the Duke with a court-martial if he didn’t return to British soil.Bloch, p.93 In August, a British warship dispatched the pair to the Bahamas, where in the view of Winston Churchill the Duke could do least damage to the British war effort. The Duke of Windsor was installed as Governor, and became the first British monarch to ever hold a civilian political office. He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony".Bloch, p.364 However, he was praised for his efforts to combat poverty on the island nation, although his attitudes (unremarkable at the time) were racist. He said of Étienne Dupuch, the editor of the Nassau Daily Tribune: "It must be remembered that Dupuch is more than half Negro, and due to the peculiar mentality of this Race, they seem unable to rise to prominence without losing their equilibrium."Ziegler, p.448 He was praised, even by Dupuch at the time, for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in 1942, even though he blamed the trouble on communist agitators and draft-dodging Jews.Ziegler, p.471-472 He held the post until the end of World War II in 1945. The Duchess of Windsor recorded in her autobiography The Heart Has Its Reasons that the Duke remarked, when telling her that Britain had declared war on Germany, that he feared that this would now mean the triumph of communism. This authoritative and sympathetic source appears to confirm that he was opposed to the war and favoured German fascism as a bulwark against communism. Edward’s experience of "the unending scenes of horror"The Duke of Windsor, p.122 during World War I led him to support appeasement. Hitler considered Edward to be friendly towards Nazi Germany, saying "His abdication was a severe loss for us."Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (Macmillan, New York, 1970) p.118 Many historians have suggested that Hitler was prepared to reinstate Edward as King in the hope of establishing a fascist Britain.Ziegler, p.392 It is widely believed that the Duke (and especially the Duchess) sympathised with fascism before and during World War II, and had to remain in the Bahamas to minimise their opportunities to act on those feelings. He is said to have told an American diplomat in 1940: "In the past 10 years Germany had totally reorganized the order of its society…Countries which were unwilling to accept such a reorganization of society and its concomitant sacrifices should direct their policies accordingly".Bloch, p.80 During the occupation of France, the Duke asked the German forces to place guards at his Paris and Riviera homes: they did so.Roberts and Fraser, p.52 The British Foreign Office strenuously objected when the pair planned to tour aboard a yacht belonging to a Swedish magnate, Axel Wenner-Gren, whom American intelligence wrongly believed to be a close friend of Nazi leader Hermann Göring.Bloch, pp.154-159, 230-233 Lord Caldecote wrote to Winston Churchill just before the couple were sent to the Bahamas, "Duke is well-known to be pro-Nazi and he may become a centre of intrigue."Ziegler, p.434 At least the latter part of this assessment is corroborated by German operations designed to use the Duke. (See Operation Willi.) The Allies became sufficiently disturbed by the German plots that President Roosevelt ordered covert surveillance of the Duke and Duchess when they visited Palm Beach, Florida, in April 1941. The former Duke of Wurttemberg (then a monk in an American monastery) had convinced the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the Duchess had been sleeping with the German ambassador in London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, had remained in constant contact with him, and had continued to leak secrets.http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4451107,00.html Rob Evans and David Hencke, Wallis Simpson, the Nazi minister, the telltale monk and an FBI plot In: The Guardian, Saturday, June 29, 2002 Later life After the war, the couple returned once again to France to live at 4 rue du Champ d'Entraînement on the Neuilly-sur-Seine side of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, where the City of Paris provided him with a houseZiegler, p.534-535 and the French government exempted him from income tax.Roberts and Fraser, p.53 They spent much of the remainder of their lives essentially in retirement, as the Duke never occupied another professional role after his wartime governorship of the Bahamas. Effectively taking on the role of minor celebrities, the couple were for a time in the 1950s and 1960s regarded as part of café society and numerous of those who met the Windsors socially reported on the vacuity of the Duke's conversation (see wikiquotes). They hosted parties and shuttled between Paris and New York. In 1951 the Duke produced a ghost-written memoir, A King's Story, in which he makes no secret of his disagreement with liberal politics. The royalties from the book, as well as large and illegal currency transactions, supplemented the Duke’s allowance. Nine years later, he also penned a relatively unknown book, Windsor Revisited, chiefly about the fashion and habits of the Royal Family throughout his life, from the time of Queen Victoria through his grandfather and father, and his own tastes. The couple appeared on Edward R. Murrow's television interview show "Person to Person", in which the Duchess repeatedly and loudly cut into the Duke's comments to correct his observations, and generally appeared to be the domineering personality her detractors had represented her to be. The couple visited President Eisenhower at the White House in 1955 and in 1970 appeared in a 50-minute BBC television interview; that year they were invited as guests of honour to a dinner at the White House by President Richard M. Nixon in repayment for their having entertained Nixon in Paris during the mid-1960s when his political fortunes were low. The Royal Family never accepted the Duchess and would not receive her formally, but the Duke sometimes met his mother and brother the king after his abdication. Queen Mary in particular maintained her anger with Edward and her indignation as to Wallis ("To give up all this for that," she saidBradford, p.198). Queen Elizabeth, Edward’s sister-in-law, remained dubious about Wallis for her role in bringing Elizabeth's husband to the throne, regarding Wallis's inappropriate and arrogant assumption of the role of consort to the king while still married to Ernest Simpson, and for her well-known scorn for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. In 1965, the Duke and Duchess returned to London. They were visited by the Queen, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent and the Princess Royal. A week later, the Princess Royal died and they attended her memorial service. In 1967 they joined the royal family for the centenary of Queen Mary's birth. The last occasion they were in the UK together was the funeral of Princess Marina in 1968. The Duke died of throat cancer on 28 May 1972 at his home in Paris, and his body was returned to Britain for burial at Frogmore Estate, near Windsor Castle. The increasingly senile and frail Duchess travelled to England to attend his funeral, staying at Buckingham Palace during her visit. She died 15 years later, and was buried alongside her husband in Frogmore simply as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor". When the Duke and Duchess's correspondence was published after the Duchess's death, the book failed to sell, with interest largely confined to the magnitude of the Duke's uxoriousness (excessive submissiveness to his wife) and his curious term of endearment for her: "Eanum Pig." Titles, styles, honours and arms Titles *'1894-1898': His Highness Prince Edward of York *'1898-1901': His Royal Highness Prince Edward of York *'1901': His Royal Highness Prince Edward of Cornwall *'1901-1910': His Royal Highness Prince Edward of Wales *'1910' His Royal Highness The Duke of Cornwall *'1910-1936': His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales **''in Scotland:'' 1910-1936: His Royal Highness The Prince Edward, Duke of Rothesay *'1936': His Majesty The King and, occasionally, outside of the United Kingdom, and with regard to India *'1936': His Imperial Majesty The King-Emperor *'1936-1937': His Royal Highness The Prince Edward *'1937-1972': His Royal Highness The Duke of Windsor (began use immediately upon abdication) Styles From his father's ascension to the throne on 6 May 1910 until his own accession on 20 January 1936, Prince Edward held the style "His Royal Highness, The Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland." His full style as king was "Edward VIII, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" Legacy In media * The calypso song "Edward VIII" by the Trinidadian calypsonian Lord Caresser was the most popular calypso record in 1937.http://www.calypsoworld.org/noflash/songs-3.htm *In the 1963 cartoon Million Hare, Bugs Bunny remarks that he has the same tailor as the Duke of Windsor. * Portrayed by Richard Chamberlain in the 1972 made for TV movie [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0069511/ The Woman I Love] - Focuses on the love between Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. * Portrayed by Edward Fox in the 1978 miniseries [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0080212/ Edward and Mrs. Simpson] - focus is again on the love story. * Guy Walters The Leader. Headline Book Publishing Ltd. 2003. - A fictional alternative history of World War II: Edward VIII does not abdicate but reigns as king with Wallis Simpson as queen. They rule a fascist England after World War II and are allied with Hitler, but are opposed by the hero of the book, Captain James Armstrong. * In The Deptford Trilogy by Canadian author Robertson Davies, Boy Staunton is a great admirer of Edward VIII, having met him in person once and styled himself after him. His discontent upon reaching the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario mirrors Edward's decision to choose love over his title and position. * In singer-songwriter Al Stewart's song "Life Between the Wars" there is a reference to Edward: "The King is leaving Buckingham Palace/It's far too cold; he'd rather have Wallis" * In the novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, written under the pen name Hannah Green, there is a mental patient whom believes she is the 'secret first wife of Edward the VIII, abdicted King of England'. Fashion * House of Mainbocher * Duke of Windsor Evening Wear * Duchess of Windsor Wedding Ensemble External links *Titles, Orders, and Military Appointments *Home Office memo re the Duke and Duchess's title References Further reading *Bloch, Michael (ed.). Wallis and Edward: Letters 1931-1937 (Summit Books, 1986). ISBN 0-671-61209-3 *Godfrey, Rupert (ed.), Letters From a Prince: Edward to Mrs. Freda Dudley Ward 1918-1921. (Little, Brown & Co. 1998). ISBN 0-7515-2590-1 *Ziegler, Philip, Mountbatten: the official biography (Collins, 1985) *The Duchess's autobiography The Heart has its Reasons appeared in 1956. *Susan Williams, The historical significance of the Abdication files, Public Records Office - New Document Releases - Abdication Papers, London: Public Records Office of the United Kingdom, 2003. Category:Monarchs of the United Kingdom Category:Monarchs of Canada Category:House of Windsor Category:Princes of Wales Category:Dukes in the Peerage of England Category:Dukes in the Peerage of Scotland Category:Dukes in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Category:Dukes of Cornwall Category:Dukes of Rothesay